The SunDaily
PETALING JAYA: Getting a promotion without the requisite salary increment is not only unfair and unjust but is also demotivating.he fact that contract medical officers are the ones being given such a raw deal reflects badly on the country’s treatment of its frontliners in the Covid-19 war.
Expressing this view, Congress of Unions of Employees in the Public and Civil Services (Cuepacs) secretary-general Abdul Rahman Mohd Nordin said this could also have a negative impact on productivity.
He was commenting on a recent report that most of the 22,000 contract medical officers who had been moved up from the UD41 to UD43 scale were not getting the salary in line with their new pay grade.
“This is strange. It should not happen in the first place, especially at a time when the nation depends heavily on these medical frontliners,” Abdul Rahman told theSun.
“The doctors deserve an increment that commensurate with their new position. Steps should be taken soon to address this,” he added.
Galen Centre for Health and Social Policy chief executive officer Azrul Mohd Khalib described the move as “peculiar”.
He said there are circumstances when contract officers are promoted instead of permanent staff, particularly when there are not enough permanent staff with the requisite qualifications to fill those vacant positions.
Azrul said the anomaly could have risen because the salary of some of these UD41 contract medical officers had reached a level equivalent with that of a UD43 officer’s salary.He said this could have been an administrative decision to put the contract medical officers in the same grade as their permanent counterparts, given that they were already receiving the same salaries.
However, Azrul said that if it is not clearly explained, it will cause disgruntlement among the officers and this could demoralise the whole medical team.
“The government has to work out a plan to retain healthcare workers and to do this, it has to make it attractive enough for them to remain in the service.”
Malaysian Medical Association (MMA) president Datuk Dr M. Subramaniam gave an assurance MMA is already working with the Health Ministry to resolve the matter.
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